Sunday, December 21, 2014

Today's Teamster News 12.21.14

Note to Readers: Today's Teamster News will be on hiatus until Jan. 1, 2015.TeamstersTeamsters donate food, toys to children’s home Sunday Gazette Mail ...Ken Hall, president of Local 175, based in South Charleston, said more than $20,000 worth of toys and food were delivered this year, beating last year’s record-setting $17,000. The local union has been raising money and making donations to the Child Center for the past 14 years...TradeProtesters surround EU buildings as anti-TTIP anger voiced in Brussels Euronews …A protest has shut down much of central Brussels. Its initial intent was to overshadow the last day of the EU’s summit in the Belgium capital, but the 28 member state meeting ended a day early. The protest went on regardless, as demonstrators took to the streets against a controversial EU trade deal known as TTIP being hashed out with the US...To the Tea Party: Beware of "Free Trade" Economy In Crisis …Several national groups formed or led by establishment Republicans like Freedomworks, Tea Party Express, and Americans for Prosperity co-opted the Tea Party label for the purposes of advancing trans-national interests under the rubric of unlimited freedom of action for these same global entities...State BattlesIn a Break From Partisan Rancor, Ohio Moves to Make Elections More Competitive New York Times …in an era of hyperpartisan gerrymandering, which many blame for the polarization of state and national politics, Ohio took a step in the opposite direction last week. With the support of both parties, the Ohio House gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to draw voting districts for the General Assembly using a bipartisan process, intended to make elections more competitive...War on WorkersNLRB changes could speed up worker decisions on unions Los Angeles Times ...It’s a relatively minor victory, given all the hurdles labor activists face in trying to organize workers, but a new ruling over access to workplace email systems should be heartening to those who support collective action by workers…Employer Groups Express Disappointment With NLRB Final Rule on Union Elections Bloomberg BNA ...Following the release by the National Labor Relations Board of a final rule to streamline the resolution of union elections, many of the largest business organizations in the U.S. quickly expressed dissatisfaction with the divided board's action, and several said they will consider their options for challenging the final rule...Close huge gap between CEO, worker pay (opinion) Indianapolis Star ...In the last 35 years, the pay for chief executives of the largest U.S. companies has increased over 900 percent, while the average worker compensation has increased just 10 percent...Is It Bad Enough Yet? New York Times (opinion) …This is the United States, which, with the incoming Congress, might actually get worse. This in part explains why we’re seeing spontaneous protests nationwide, protests that, in their scale, racial diversity, anger and largely nonviolent nature, are unusual if not unique. I was in four cities recently — New York, Washington, Berkeley and Oakland — and there were actions every night in each of them. Meanwhile, workers walked off the job in 190 cities on Dec. 4...5 Reasons for the Slow Recovery in Long-Term Unemployment Wall Street Journal ...Job openings are back to precession levels but long-term unemployment has yet to catch up. Almost 2% of the labor force have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer...The Unfinished Civil War Jacobin …we can’t leave the South alone, even if we wanted to. And we shouldn’t want to, because there are actually enormous organizing possibilities in the region...Families of workers killed in Dallas office tower speak out KHOU ..."They didn't have any oxygen, no training, no safety preparation, and no fire extinguisher," Garcia said...Worker Killed in Explosion at Ammunition Factory Aol Jobs …Federal investigators are returning to the scene of a deadly explosion at an ammunition factory in Tennessee. One worker was killed and three others were injured in the blast...FedEx truck crash sends packages spilling onto a Georgia highway GOX News …the truck driver says he was hauling two trailers Tuesday morning and lost control after the second one became loose. Cleanup was ongoing into the afternoon and some packages were destroyed...